What took place in Auschwitz revokes what Adorno termed the "Western legacy of positivity", the innermost substance of traditional philosophy. The prime task of philosophy then remains to reflect on its own failure, its own complicity in such events. Yet in linking the question of philosophy to historical occurrence, Adorno seems not to have abandoned his paradoxical hope that philosophy might not be entirely closed to the idea of redemption. He prepares for an altogether different praxis, one no longer conceived in traditionally Marxist terms but rather to be gleaned from "metaphysical experience". This text anatomizes the range of Adorno's concerns, including sections such as "Art, Memory of Suffering", "Damaged Life", "Administered World, Reified Thought", "Toward a New Categorical Imperative", and "A Philosophy That Keeps Itself Alive".
